| General Fiction posted March 4, 2023 | Chapters: |
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The story begins
A chapter in the book Lucky Eddie
Lucky Eddie Prolog & Chapter 1
by Jim Wile
| Background Two young men meet as opponents during the finals of the golf club championship and soon become lifelong best friends. It is their great friendship that helps them navigate many of life's challenges. |
Prolog
The match was now all square going into the 18th hole. The scorecard read 183 yards, but today it would be playing considerably longer, so I reached for my 4-iron. The pin was perched on a shelf in the very back of this long, essentially 3-level green, and there was a steep drop-off into dense rough and trees behind the green. You did not want to miss long, as it would be impossible to put the next one close, if you could even find your ball.
Having won the previous hole, I had the honors. A few of the members had wandered out to watch the conclusion of the match and lined the left side of the green. I stepped up to the tee, and after a practice swing and two deep breaths, I unleashed a beauty—a high, arcing fade that landed softly and rolled up six feet just short of and slightly to the right of the flagstick. I couldn’t have asked for a better shot, and Abby saw me hit it! I caught her eye as I made room for Eddie, and she gave me a dazzling smile as she quietly applauded.
Now it was Eddie’s turn. With his 2-iron, he took a mammoth swipe at the ball and uncorked a low bullet. It hit the front of the long, narrow green and ran up toward the flagstick. But it was going too fast and would surely pass the flag and shoot over the back and down the hill to the trees below… except that it collided with my ball… and ricocheted left… and into the hole!
And just like that, it was over. Eddie had won. He let out a whoop and started strutting around the tee, bellowing, “Oh yeah, oh yeah!” As he passed by me, I gave him a high-5; what else could I do? Much to my surprise, he grabbed me by the neck, jumped up and put his legs around my waist, and wouldn’t let go while he pumped his fist in the air and continued bellowing. What a character! You had to love him. I ended up carrying him off the tee and set him down on the cart beside Abby, who he suddenly grabbed and gave a big smooch on the mouth. “Did you see that, Red?”
“I saw it, Eddie,” she said as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told me about it, but I saw it.” She looked over at me, ruefully. “C’mon, boys, I’ll give you both a ride back to the clubhouse. I’ve got to wait tables now, and Eddie, I believe you owe everyone a round of drinks?”
“That is certainly true, thanks to my good buddy, Kenny here. Come on in, folks. Drinks on me!” he shouted to the members who witnessed his miracle shot as we headed up the path to the clubhouse to celebrate the 1975 club champion.
My name is Kenyon Payne or just Kenny. You may remember this scene from a book called Some Call It Luck. That was Abby and E.J.’s story, and Eddie and I were relatively small players in it. That darn Jim Wile actually wrote Lucky Eddie first, but for some reason decided to strip parts of it out and put them into Some Call It Luck and present that to you FanStorians first. I feel a little cheated by that, but who knows why authors do what they do? At any rate, I won’t repeat the parts that he pulled out of this one except for that first scene I just related.
I’m in my early 60s now but this story begins when I was 22 years old. I had just started my first job after college as a mechanical engineer, after having moved here from the Midwest about three months earlier. I had played college golf at Michigan State University and sported a 1-handicap. I was eager to make some golfing buddies, so I joined Brentwood Country Club in the town of DuBois, Pennsylvania shortly after moving here.
Brentwood was a beautiful old country club that dated back to 1926. The clubhouse, pro shop, maintenance barn and other buildings were all designed in the Tudor style of architecture, and clipped boxwood hedges, flower boxes, and flower beds surrounded everything.
Shortly after joining, it was time for the club championship, and I decided to play in it. It was a match play tournament and I made it to the finals where my opponent was Eddie Phillips who I had never met before. I won’t go into all the details of that match because you already know how it ended; the son-of-a-bitch beat me.
This story is primarily about Eddie. He was the loudest, most flamboyant, often obnoxious person—the kind you either loved or hated—who I had ever met. He also became my best friend, and I loved him.
Oh yeah, and he was the best damn putter I ever saw.
It was Eddie who introduced me to the love of my life during that final round of the club championship when we stopped for a break between nines. Her name was Abby St. Claire, and she tended the snack bar and waitressed in the clubhouse for a summer job during her college years.
Abby was smart and beautiful, with long red hair and lovely green eyes. She and I started dating immediately, and within a year, we were married. You can read all about that in Some Call It Luck.
If you look at that picture at the top, that's me on the left, Eddie in the middle, and Abby on the right. Isn't she gorgeous?
So, let’s pick up the story a few weeks after that opening scene.
The Hustle
Eddie and I started playing a lot of golf together on weekends. Abby had to work Saturday and Sunday afternoons, so that’s when we scheduled our games. It was usually just the two of us. Eddie said he was pretty particular about who he played with, but I had the feeling he had trouble getting games together. He was not very well-liked around here. Most of the members were on the older side, and he simply struck a wrong chord with them. They couldn’t tolerate his brashness and his loud manner. He appealed more to the younger members, of which there were only a few. I got a big kick out of him, though.
I found out that he was the youngest of five siblings who all seemed to love to argue. It did a lot to explain his loud, attention-getting manner; as the baby, he had to make himself heard over the racket.
We usually played for small stakes—at my request, no more than a $5 Nassau. Eddie would have preferred to go much higher. He probably won more than he lost, for he had a tendency to rattle me with his uncanny putting. He wasn’t a naturally-gifted athlete, but he had found an area of the game in which he could excel. He never seemed to miss a makeable putt.
Eddie made his living as an inventor, mostly of golf-related items. He was quite successful, having invented a widely-used cup-cutter, a shag bag and a well-balanced pull cart. He was currently working on putter designs—his true passion, he said.
“Let me see that putter of yours—the one that looks like the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek,” I asked him while sitting in the bar one Sunday afternoon after we had finished a round. He went into the bag room, which was nearby, pulled it from his bag and brought it out to me. He had brought my Bull’s Eye putter with him as well. Not only did his putter have those big protrusions on the heel and toe, but the shaft was bent at the bottom.
“Look at this,” he said as he laid the shaft across his outstretched index finger so that the putter was perfectly balanced on his finger. “Look at the face; how it stays horizontal.” Indeed, it did. “Now look at what your putter does. He then balanced my putter on his finger. “Look at how the toe hangs down.”
“So what’s the advantage of yours?”
“I don’t know yet, but I sure seem to putt a lot better with it than your type.”
“You know, Eddie, there’s a lot of physics involved here. Did you ever study physics in college?”
“Not really, Sport. I only attended one year of college. It wasn’t exactly my thing, if you know what I mean. I kinda got, let’s say, a little distracted by all the cuties around that place, and I partied pretty hard. A 1.1 grade average just didn’t cut it.”
“Well, college isn’t for everyone, I guess. Did you ever think about going back?”
“Nah. I’d always invented stuff as a kid—some of it was pretty clever, if I do say so myself. Then after getting kicked out of college, I struck it big with a couple of inventions that actually sold. It was all downhill from there. Or is it uphill? I can never remember which is which.”
“Well, if things got better for you, I’d say it’s uphill.”
“Yeah, but if you’re on a bike, it’s much easier pedaling downhill. I guess it’s all in your point of view. What I meant to say was that things were good from then on. I figured I didn’t need any more college.”
“You know,” I said, looking at his ‘Enterprise’ putter again. “I could help you figure out why it works so well for you. I know the physics of force vectors and moments of inertia and such things. I think I could help you out. If nothing else, it might cut down on all the trial and error you undoubtedly must do.”
“Well, you’re right about that. It would be good to understand what’s really happening. I love it, my man! When do we start?”
“How about right now?” I said, as I grabbed a napkin and started scribbling diagrams on it with a pencil. We spent the next two hours deep in discussion. The time flew by and before I knew it, it was quarter to six.
“Jeez, look at the time! I’ve got to meet Abby at six o’clock. I better get going.”
“You and she are getting pretty serious, aren’t you? I couldn’t be happier for you, Sport. She’s quite a catch.”
“She thinks you’re pretty swell, yourself, you know. She may act all peevish with you, but it’s just an act; she really likes you!”
“I guess I know that. You guys have fun tonight, and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Alright, Eddie. I’ll call you. Let’s try to get together again soon on some of this putter stuff. It’s pretty exciting!”
(This chapter will be continued next week.)
I will use this area for character descriptions starting with the next chapter.
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